the origins of a time lord
by Ace de Luca
Summary: Mindless blather: A series of drabbles. "Holes in space, in time, he slips through them like a rat and emerges victorious on the other side, crowned in thorny roses." The doctor before we know him; eventually eleven.
1. Chapter 1

_Origins Of A Time Lord_

Perhaps there is meaning in that thing named so whimsically by mortals; fate. Perhaps there is some reason behind it's cruelty and it's never ending quest to destroy (he is bitter and the words are sharp and tangy on his tongue) but he only looks for one thing. He looks for the loopholes.

Holes in space, in time, he slips through them like a rat and emerges victorious on the other side, crowned in thorny roses.

His mother pulls her hair out with worry when he comes home with bruises painted over his skin. He grins and tells her, rather stoically - an emotion he's growing to rely on too much - that they are his masterpiece and they define him.

He looks into the time vortex and his stomach turns to knots.

They begin to fall to pieces and he can see something sinister behind the brown doe-eyes of the boy that has begun to speak to himself in the dormitory at night. (He mumbles incoherently and worries the others and the think they hear '_master' _and they fear for the future.)

He grips the sheets with white-knuckled fingers and thinks of the stars, the galaxies that await him. They are timeless and he is timeless and they are made for one another.

He starts to learn to fly the TARDIS and his teachers notice his affinity for it; on the first day he speaks to her like they have always been the best of friends, and his fingers are gentle and tender on the controls. He cuts out his path of marble and proves himself an engineer, a scientist, uses his words like weapons and grins like a cat in the face of extreme danger.

Fate, it seems, has plans other than strict compliance for him, and in the face of dominance, of dictatorship, his morals crumble like drywall. Others might have fought and others might have been placid as lambs, but he runs and he does not stop. He hijacks the TARDIS and it's almost effortless, but she groans and whines and moans and he thinks d_amn, there was a reason for six pilots after all! _He curses himself for his lack of foresight but she quivers into life and he soothes her off into the stars and when he lands he is full of wonderment and awe.

He steps out of the doors – they creak with reluctance – and he looks up into the stars and wonders if they see these same ones at home.


	2. Chapter 2

_Origins Of A Time Lord II_

The first human he meets is trembling, clutching one arm around her racking chest and the other to her blueish lips; he feels nothing but an entirely alien swell of pity and compassion and he reaches out to help her.

There are many after her - he is rarely alone - and when he is he finds the silence all-too consuming. It is not hard for him to wind these humans around his fingers like he is controlling the strings of marionettes, but the stab of guilt in his abdomen when their lips tighten and their heartbeats pound in their ears (he can see it, _feel _it, rather) in the face of danger is one that he can barely stomach.

They are blind, helpless creatures falling out of the nest and into a world that is too unforgiving to avoid crushing their intricate delicacies under its boot, and so he helps them.

He saves them again and again and again and only a select few of them notice.

The light in their eyes and the plain, unaltered gratitude he feels in them is enough to last the Earth a lifetime, though, and it is safe in the hands of its saviour.

(He begins to wonder if he is playing God, what he hopes to mould them into, because they are as selfish and rapacious as they are naive and wonderful.)

They disappoint him time and time again, but much like a benevolent father, he admires the tiny, trivial adjustments they make to their society over time. He watches women chaining themselves to fences and he watches slaves rise against their masters. He watches as children are sprayed with fire hoses and police dogs set upon them and he could weep, he watches as they begin to understand barbarity and he sees the hands of races intertwined in friendship.

He would weep with pride, if he could.


End file.
